Button sequence for Meade Guided Tour

[alfingido]

I had a Meade LX90 about 10 years ago, I think I used the Guided Tour a couple of times and it seemed to work well, as far as I remember.

A few weeks ago, I picked up another LX90 and decided to have a go at the Guided Tour last night. All was going well till I asked it to slew to Sirius from M42, which it did, then back to M42. Instead, It slewed away and ended up looking at M37. It did this a couple of times to different objects, so I assumed something had gone wrong and I asked the scope to slew to Polaris, so I could park the scope and start again. It went straight to Polaris.

I realigned the scope and everything then worked fine.

So, what was I doing wrong? When I select an object in the guided tour, do I press Enter then Goto, or just Goto? I have a feeling that a few times I just pressed Goto, the rest of the time I pressed Enter then Goto.

Allan

[russ.will]

I only press GOTO once to slew to a subject. That holds for my EXOS2 GOTO (an LXD75) and based on last nights first session, my LX200.

What I will also say is that when battery voltage drops too low, I too sometimes have to press ENTER and then GOTO to get either to slew. I normally take it as a sign that time is about up, because shortly after GOTOs start to become rather erratic.

Russell

[alfingido]

Thanks. I have the Audiostar handset. All the guided tour objects so far have had an audio commentary. To get the audio, I can either select the object and press enter, the audio starts then press goto and the scope will slew. Or I select the object. Press goto then when it finished slewing, press enter and the audio starts.

I'm pretty sure the incorrect slews started after I preased goto first

I just wondered if there was an official sequence recommended, there is nothing in the user manual for the Audiostar

Allan

[russ.will]

Can't speak about Audiostar, as I don't have it.

Russell

[Wardr77]

Hi,

Appreciate this is a late response, but just wondered if there is any further updates on this? I had exactly the same issue last night. Most times when hitting Goto it would go to the object but a few times it went to something different. If I followed Meades instruction manual guidelines and pressed Enter first followed by GOTO it would always work, it just seemed strange that pressing just GOTO would work most of the time. The only thing I did notice is that during the session the guided tour updated itself with new objects that came into view and wonder whether this maybe a contributing to factor to the 'Goto only' issue.

Fantastic evenings viewing though

[alfingido]

I have updated the firmware on my Audiostar controller and I haven't had the incorrect slewing after pressing Goto first.

One thing that I noticed with the old firmware and new firmware is that the Tour freezes after it reaches the end. I have a spare Audiostar handset ( also with latest firmware) and the Tour freezes with this as well. To continue using the scope, I have to turn it off and realign, or come out of tour before I reach the end.

The battery I use is a brand new very heavy duty 33ah Ring Booster battery that should be good for a few days use before charging.

Allan

[Wardr77]

Interesting. I haven't noticed the 'Freezing' you mention when the tour reached the end, but the odd gotos certainly started happening after this point. It really isn't too big of an issue for me, particularly if I follow the Enter then Goto routine, more of a minor annoyance than anything else. I'm just a little wary about updating the firmware in case I introduce more problems!! Starting to get paranoid. 

Thanks for your response btw.

[alfingido]

I'm just a little wary about updating the firmware in case I introduce more problems!! Starting to get paranoid. 

Thanks for your response btw.

I know the feeling. I bought a new Audiostar handset with the latest firmware before I started messing around with updating the old one. Expensive way to do it, but I have been caught out before with a dead handset after upgrading!

So, now I have a spare, should I ever need it and I can update one in the future and still be sure I have a working one.

Allan